Classic blues on Tenor … :-p

[Jazz Cat]

here’s my latest, I’m holding the horn wrong though…enjoy:

got a little growl on an early note, yay..

[Michael]

Thanks for the upload Ken, nice looking video 🙂 Those Green Screens are so much fun to play around with, there’s no end to what we can do with them. Nice to see some Blues–here where I live in Arkansas, if you can’t play the Blues then you have no chance of playing with a band. 90% of the bands here are Blues bands.
Nice use of trills in your playing, very cool. Good for you to catch yourself not holding the Sax in the right position (that’s the great thing about video). The MP is not far enough in your mouth and this is affecting a lot of things like your articulation, an Oral Cavity that is not open enough and we end up getting a sound that is “congested” v.s. very warm and open. Johnny always tells us to push the MP in to where it feels uncomfortable and then slide the MP out a little bit, there’s that fine line of where the MP/reed should be placed out in our embouchure. If you look at your MP from the side and look at where it starts to kind of curve upwards, that’s usually a great place to where you can place the top of your teeth at (hope I’m describing this correctly with typing, would be much easier to show on a video/photo). Very cool that you’re starting to come up with your own licks/riffs, there’s some places where you had good spacing between your licks too, that’s something Lee Allen would do a lot and it sounds great. One thing I think you could focus on is to work on building some intensity in your playing as you progress with Improvising so that your licks/riffs aren’t uniform throughout the backing track. You can do this in a variety of ways. One simple way is to start on the lower registers of the Sax with very simple licks/riffs with lots of spacing in between the licks, and then as your work throughout the song you can start to get more intense with your playing by working up to higher Octaves and getting more intense with your rhythms. King Curtis was really famous for doing just that, take a good look at his playing and you’ll see what I mean–along with building intensity, check out that ‘attitude’ King Curtis had when playing the Blues. When we’re playing the Blues, it really helps to always think of the Rhythm of our playing. Very cool Ken, thanks for sharing! 🙂

[Jazz Cat]

hi Michael, thanks as always for your thoughtful tips; much appreciated. I agree with all your points, well said. Going from a lifetime on alto to now tenor, its a challenge to take in more mp — thanks for the idea re starting where it curves and go back a bit. Good ideas on lower-register & intensity, w/spacing, I’ll work on that. Nice ideas, will do re checking out King Curtis, I’ve been listening to a lot of Sonny Stitt, Michael Becker & Gerald Albright lately too, for inspiration.

[Michael]

@ Ken–Keep up the great work, doing great. Yep, the Tenor is a very different Sax to say the least…but SO much fun 🙂 Do you plan on doing any more Alto Sax playing? I will start learning Johnny’s cover to Europa on the Alto soon–everyone thinks of that song on the Tenor and for good reason, but I think it would sound fantastic on the Alto too–that’s the thing with Europa, either Sax it doesn’t seem to matter because it’s such a good song 🙂
Those are cool folks to listen to, just remember that we see those guys sometimes going pretty mental with their playing, but it all starts with just very simple steps–gotta walk before we can run. You just said something really important Ken about listening to those guys and it’s a great point to keep in mind regarding any player we listen to: I was taught that one of the best things you can do do permanently change your sound is not by getting crazy about equipment–but rather if we want change our sound, then change what we listen to. What my Instructor meant was that we all have different thoughts/concepts of sound. If I wanna get a big rock and roll type of sound, I can’t be listening to Kenny G all the time LOL The MP/reed set up is important as we know, but it still doesn’t do us any good if we don’t have that concept of sound fixed in our heads. In other words, if we can’t hear it, then we can’t play it. I spend a lot of time listening to old school Motown/R&B players because that’s the sound that appeals to me the most….talk about good stuff 🙂 So if I have that concept of sound fixed in my head, then I can get it to come out in my own playing. Thanks for posting Ken, very encouraging 🙂 Your videos of the Green Screen is what got me hooked into doing the same thing with my uploads as soon as I’m fully recuperated. I just got my frenectomy today (removal of the tendon under the tongue)….talk about a funky feeling LOL

[Anonymous]

Nice one Jazz

The purple 62 looks and sounds great!

[Mark Kiziuk]

Good job Ken!

[William Cingolani]

Blowing some great Blues Ken. Great tips Michael. Why would Ken be holding his sax wrong? Seems ok to me but I’m not too sharp on visual detail

[Pete]

William
Ken isn’t holding is sax wrong lots of players I know
hold it this way ( especially sitting down) I hold mine
this way, I think what Ken means is the mouthpiece
is in wrong position.

[William Cingolani]

Thanks Peter. I’m working on some possible solo ideas for Johnny’s “The Wanderer”.

[Michael]

Yeah, all those kinds of things are kind of subjective because we’re all do different-especially if we’re sitting down. But check out Johnny how he holds the Saxophone, here’s his great songs below. His sax is in slightly more of an upright position v.s. letting it just hang down from his body. If you keep your shoulders relaxed and think about the back of your neck being in the upright position, this will really open everything up and helps improve your tone v.s. letting the weight of the Sax kind of drop down below you, this alone can prevent someone from hitting Altissimo notes. We’re all different, but these are good general starting points. If anything, really got to make sure we have enough of the MP in the Mouth like Peter is saying. Check out how Johnny positions the MP in his mouth, it’s not slouching down to the extreme. Some guys let the MP point upward just ever so slightly in their mouths, increase air flow.

[Author]

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